Invisible To Him
by Poxy Kirkman
Summary: Every day she sees him. But he never sees her...


Here's the oneshot I promised in my poll!

It's focused around Jack and his sister. For the sake of the story I'm calling her Emma, which in the RotG!universe seems to be canon :)

So I hope y'all enjoy!

Check out my other fics, **'The End Of Summer'** is my longest, and then I did a Jackrabbit fic called **'Tricky Dreams'** so yeah. Shameless plugs.

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"Pastor, do you believe in ghosts?" the girl asked, twining her fingers together. The older man paused as he lit the candles ready for Sunday mass, casting his dark eyes back to consider the girl sat in the front row of pews, before going back to his task.

"Why do you ask, child?" he questioned, extinguishing his light and watching the candles flicker a little before he turned to face the girl and approached, sitting beside her slowly, his old bones creaking.

"I... I just want to know if ghosts exist," she muttered, sweeping her long brown hair out of her face, casting her big chocolate eyes to the ground.

"So it's not so much a question of whether I believe in them, but if they are real?" the older man asked, and she nodded quietly, glancing up at him as he sighed slightly, and he hummed a little, considering his answer. "The Lord works in mysterious ways, my child. If spirits do walk this Earth, then they are here for a reason."

"Can we communicate with them?" she asked, looking up at him properly now, her eyes hopeful.

"That, I don't know. If there are spirits among us, then we are best waiting for them to communicate with us. We should not interfere with fate."

He knew why she was asking... for years the brunette girl had come to church to talk of her losses, to ask his advice and despite all her heartbreak, she had not lost her hope. He had to admire that in the girl. It did, however, concern him that the girl seemed constantly lost in a trance like state. She was always quiet, wandering about town with her eyes cast to the skies. He had wondered, along with many of the other villagers, if she were simply praying to God for strength, courage and the ability to overcome her losses. To be able to move on. But she seemed perfectly alright talking about her long dead brother, recalling fond memories of him and laughing about his many antics. It seemed, instead, she were searching for something, or someone, and her constant questions of ethereal beings did concern the poor man of her mental well being.

"And... Pastor, what if they communicate with other people, but not yourself?" she asked quietly, her hands fidgeting in her lap.

"Then, my child, we would have to assumer that they did not want to communicate with us... or simply, they weren't ready for it," he told her gently. "You know, Emma... there is an old saying I would like to share with you."

"What is it?" she asked, looking up at him, averting her eyes for the first time from the floor.

"That there is a time for everything, and everything in it's time."

"Where did you hear that?" she asked, a small smile playing across her lips. He smiled back at her, shaking his head slightly and shrugging his shoulders.

"I honestly couldn't tell you. I believe it's something I heard in my childhood and it simply stuck with me."

"It's nice..." she murmured, and though she looked away, he continued to smile down at her.

"It means that everything happens in it's own time, and we must let nature take it's course. If something is meant to happen to you, then it is fate. And we need to learn to accept that."

There was a moment of silence that seemed to stretch on for an eternity. While the elderly man looked down with concern in his dark eyes for the young girl before him who seemed so lost and so confused, the girl herself seemed to be puzzling over something herself. Eventually she shook herself out of her thoughts and looked up at him, smiling widely.

"Thank you for your help Pastor."

"Any time, child," he replied, standing with her and waving her goodbye as she walked from the small chapel.

The brunette girl sighed as soon as she was clear of the chapel, her brown eyes cast down in sadness as she considered everything the Pastor told her. It was when she heard that familiar old laughter that she looked up quickly, stopping in her tracks as he ran by. She followed him with her eyes, watching as he ran and jumped about, throwing snowballs at children and standing back as they blamed one another and a snowball fight broke out. He jumped to and fro, making more snowballs for the children, egging them on... and then his face dropped, his eyes expressed such a look of hurt, and his hand flew to his stomach as one young boy ran through him.

It was still strange seeing him like this... he was but a ghost. His hair was a snowy white, where it had been chocolate brown before, and his usual brown eyes were now ice blue. But he was still her brother... no matter what.

Emma walked forward slowly, wondering if this time he would notice her, and not the others, who so clearly didn't notice him. But he seemed upset now, his eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed and he turned her way, walking quickly.

For a second she smiled. He was coming her way, looking right at her, but he looked like he was about to cry, and just as she was about to say his name he took that step and walked through her.

It was her turn to look hurt, and she could feel tears pooling in her eyes, and she looked around at his retreating figure, his head hung down as he stormed through the village, and she longed so much to run after him and shout his name and stop him leaving, so maybe she could get her brother back, and she wouldn't feel so lonely any more, and maybe he wouldn't either.

But he leapt into the air and soared off, the wind carrying him, and she stood there in the bitter cold, shivering as it bit at her. She wanted to show him that she could see him, and tears streamed down her face as she stood staring at where he had been, her hand clutching over the place her heart was. Her heart aching so terribly that she wanted nothing more than to forget everything like he had forgotten her.

Turning on her hell, Emma walked the other way, heading home quickly with her eyes blurring and stinging with the cold. She rushed on, bursting through her door and running through the small hut to her room, jumping on the bed and burying her face in the woollen blankets.

It wasn't fair!

It wasn't fair to either of them, really. Jack had lost his life, and he'd gone from being the life and soul of everything, from entertaining people and having fun to being ignored, being invisible to everybody. Everybody except her.

And then she was seen by everybody, people always asked her how she was, how she was coping... they were always asking her to come around for her dinner or for somebody to talk to if she needed to. And she didn't need anybody, she just needed her brother back.

But it seemed she wasn't seen by him. Where everyone else walked through him, he always walked through her.

"I miss you Jack," she whispered into the blanket, wiping her eyes on the rough spun wool.

And she would always miss him, and she would always try and talk to him, try and show him that she could see him, hear him and talk to him. But the problem wasn't him being invisible to the world bar her.

It was that she was invisible to him.


End file.
